If you want to see the final pictures of this project you can find them HERE

*This post contains Affiliate Links*

We bought our house as a three bedroom with a large loft. In our neighborhood the houses are all boring builder grade. You can find your exact layout throughout the city 10 times over. So we’ve actually had the opportunity to walk through our house layout as a 4 bedroom, it was ok. The 4 bedroom layout was definitely missing the airy space we have with our loft. We struggled with the idea of axing the loft in lieu of a fourth bedroom. The extra open space is wonderful, but we’d like to eventually have a second kid which likely means giving up our guest room (Although I’m not opposed to kids sharing rooms). Having 3 bedrooms is totally doable, but isn’t ideal with our frequent visits from Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, friends, etc.

Another factor: rentability. as I’ve said in the past, this will be a rental when we inevitably move. Three bedroom houses in our area appear to be a dime a dozen, having a four bedroom would help our house rent faster.

So, after some consideration we decided to try and convert our loft into a 4th bedroom while keeping the open space feeling. How? With double pocket doors of course! I was inspired by the pocket doors from this room (I believe the photo is from a Slovak article). To give the room a closet we split BH’s closet in half. BH’s closet was absurdly large for how big his bedroom is (The thing is practically 1/2 the size of his room). Even after splitting his closet in half we’re left with two walk in closets.

Here’s a crappy picture of BH’s closet before:

Here is a crappy after shot of BH’s Closet now:

The closet in the loft is the exact same size as BH’s closet. We still haven’t added shelving in either closet (waiting for flooring), so we’re quite the disaster upstairs because of it (and many other reasons, like being slobs).

Here is a before video of the loft:

Since we have about 10 other projects going on, and don’t really know when we’re moving (sometime in the next year) we decided to hire out for the pocket doors, and closet framing/drywall. It was so worth it. Not only was it done fast, it was awesome to watch a professional do their thing with framing and drywall. I learned a lot just from watching our contractor, and got to occasionally pick his brain about why and how he was doing things. It’s also refreshing to watch somebody actually clean up their mess EVERYDAY after they’re done. We never do that.

We picked out these 36″ doors from Lowe’s. We were able to go with the very biggest they had, meaning the wall is literally 1/2 door! We were cheap and went with hollow core doors. If this room were to function as somebodies permanent bedroom I would have gone with a solid core door to cut down on noise, but since this will only sometimes function as a bedroom for adult guests we decided to skip the solid core (sorry guests). We also bought the pre-framed pocket door and hardware kit from Lowe’s, which was expensive!!! If we weren’t crunched for time with these projects I’d probably lean towards DIYing the framing.

Below are the after pictures! We couldn’t be happier! I was worried the room would feel small or cramped, but I think it’s a perfectly functional size for what it needs to be.

For the pocket door hardware I got a THIS (*Affiliate Link*) off Amazon.

I really don’t think we’ll have the doors shut often, but aren’t they pretty? I can’t wait to finish painting, rip out the carpet, and trim out that door out!

If you’re interested in the upstairs remodel plan of action you can see it here.

-Dorris

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About Us

Hey, we're Dorris & JG. This is where we share our endeavors in all things DIY, home improvement, and general carpentry. Between never ending house projects and building furniture we stay busy chasing our toddler son around. Read More…